This chapter examines colonial Australia’s view of the British monarchy. It suggests that the Australian conception of the monarchy was the most potent symbol in conveying ideas of Australia’s ...
More

This chapter examines colonial Australia’s view of the British monarchy. It suggests that the Australian conception of the monarchy was the most potent symbol in conveying ideas of Australia’s inherent unity and fraternity with Britain and the Empire. The loyalty to the monarchy may be attributed to Australia’s distance from Britain, which tended to exaggerate affection to the King. In addition, the institution of monarchy in Australia was detached from the ancient hierarchy of aristocracy and privilege on which it rested in Britain.Less

Monarchy: From Reverence to Indifference

Mark McKenna

Published in print: 2010-01-07

This chapter examines colonial Australia’s view of the British monarchy. It suggests that the Australian conception of the monarchy was the most potent symbol in conveying ideas of Australia’s inherent unity and fraternity with Britain and the Empire. The loyalty to the monarchy may be attributed to Australia’s distance from Britain, which tended to exaggerate affection to the King. In addition, the institution of monarchy in Australia was detached from the ancient hierarchy of aristocracy and privilege on which it rested in Britain.

An in-depth and wide-ranging academic investigation of the reception of the Tudor period in the modern world, this book includes studies by many of the leading scholars in their fields, and considers ...
More

An in-depth and wide-ranging academic investigation of the reception of the Tudor period in the modern world, this book includes studies by many of the leading scholars in their fields, and considers the modern appropriation of the Tudors in art, music, architecture, design, religion, public history, social history, film and television, and internet networking sites. A noteworthy scholarly trend in recent decades has been a growing interest in the ways in which societies utilise the past as a cultural resource, as a repertoire of quotable designs and styles, as a vantage point from which to frame political and social critiques, as a source of identities, and as a refuge from present-day anxieties. There has been a great deal of academic interest, for example, in the reception of the ancient world in modern Western culture. Likewise, a growing body of scholarship is devoted to the study of medievalism, the images, and ideas that attach to the Middle Ages in the post-medieval imaginary. It is striking that, in stark contrast, very little attention has been paid to the cultural appropriation of the Tudor age, despite the pronounced and enduring popularity of the Tudors within the popular historical consciousness, not only in Britain but also in many other countries. Indeed, the Tudors supply many of the signature icons of Britishness and the British monarchy around the world.Less

Tudorism : Historical Imagination and the Appropriation of the Sixteenth Century

Published in print: 2011-12-22

An in-depth and wide-ranging academic investigation of the reception of the Tudor period in the modern world, this book includes studies by many of the leading scholars in their fields, and considers the modern appropriation of the Tudors in art, music, architecture, design, religion, public history, social history, film and television, and internet networking sites. A noteworthy scholarly trend in recent decades has been a growing interest in the ways in which societies utilise the past as a cultural resource, as a repertoire of quotable designs and styles, as a vantage point from which to frame political and social critiques, as a source of identities, and as a refuge from present-day anxieties. There has been a great deal of academic interest, for example, in the reception of the ancient world in modern Western culture. Likewise, a growing body of scholarship is devoted to the study of medievalism, the images, and ideas that attach to the Middle Ages in the post-medieval imaginary. It is striking that, in stark contrast, very little attention has been paid to the cultural appropriation of the Tudor age, despite the pronounced and enduring popularity of the Tudors within the popular historical consciousness, not only in Britain but also in many other countries. Indeed, the Tudors supply many of the signature icons of Britishness and the British monarchy around the world.

In April 1949 the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ meeting in London issued a joint declaration stating that it accepted India’s decision to become a republic and remain part of the Commonwealth. The ...
More

In April 1949 the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ meeting in London issued a joint declaration stating that it accepted India’s decision to become a republic and remain part of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth had hitherto been a grouping of realms and colonies that owed allegiance to a common monarch. Though attention has been given to how the inclusion of India affected the Commonwealth, far less research has been given to how this transformative action influenced the monarchy. The chapter investigates the ideas that were debated at the time. Did India’s republican status within the Commonwealth spell the demise of the Crown as the embodiment of British prestige, leaving it as an embarrassing vestige of vanishing glory? Or did the 1949 London Declaration, rather, usher in a new era for the Monarch to revive the relevance of the Crown in the post-war age as Head of the Commonwealth, a position shorn of imperial pretensions and open to new international opportunities? This chapter explores whether the London Declaration, which marked the beginning of the “New Commonwealth”, also extended to making a “New Monarchy”. India had caused Victoria to be raised to the exalted status of Empress in 1876, but what would that country, less than a century later, make of her successors?Less

A new monarchy for a new commonwealth? Monarchy and the consequences of republican India

H. Kumarasingham

Published in print: 2016-08-01

In April 1949 the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ meeting in London issued a joint declaration stating that it accepted India’s decision to become a republic and remain part of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth had hitherto been a grouping of realms and colonies that owed allegiance to a common monarch. Though attention has been given to how the inclusion of India affected the Commonwealth, far less research has been given to how this transformative action influenced the monarchy. The chapter investigates the ideas that were debated at the time. Did India’s republican status within the Commonwealth spell the demise of the Crown as the embodiment of British prestige, leaving it as an embarrassing vestige of vanishing glory? Or did the 1949 London Declaration, rather, usher in a new era for the Monarch to revive the relevance of the Crown in the post-war age as Head of the Commonwealth, a position shorn of imperial pretensions and open to new international opportunities? This chapter explores whether the London Declaration, which marked the beginning of the “New Commonwealth”, also extended to making a “New Monarchy”. India had caused Victoria to be raised to the exalted status of Empress in 1876, but what would that country, less than a century later, make of her successors?

This chapter traces the democratic fascination with both the sacred rituals of state and the personalized authority of the British monarchy, while attempting to make sense of the symbolic value of ...
More

This chapter traces the democratic fascination with both the sacred rituals of state and the personalized authority of the British monarchy, while attempting to make sense of the symbolic value of such prepolitical attachments. It considers not only the comparative aesthetics of governmental power but also how such psychic projections onto the forms and practices of a monarchy elsewhere helped to address the political moment at home. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, Americans indulged in a cult of reverence toward Britain's monarchy not to express their loyalty to Queen Victoria but to experience a compensatory and archaic sense of attachment to the idea of a state unlike their own. Redefining allegiance as a felt response to dignity and grandeur (as embodied in a queen), Americans who loved Victoria found new ways to love America: they conceived of a different sort of patriotism than that enacted by the rational bonds of democratic ideology.Less

Monarch-Love; or, How the Prince of Wales Saved the Union

Elisa Tamarkin

Published in print: 2008-07-15

This chapter traces the democratic fascination with both the sacred rituals of state and the personalized authority of the British monarchy, while attempting to make sense of the symbolic value of such prepolitical attachments. It considers not only the comparative aesthetics of governmental power but also how such psychic projections onto the forms and practices of a monarchy elsewhere helped to address the political moment at home. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, Americans indulged in a cult of reverence toward Britain's monarchy not to express their loyalty to Queen Victoria but to experience a compensatory and archaic sense of attachment to the idea of a state unlike their own. Redefining allegiance as a felt response to dignity and grandeur (as embodied in a queen), Americans who loved Victoria found new ways to love America: they conceived of a different sort of patriotism than that enacted by the rational bonds of democratic ideology.

Moving images of the British monarchy, in fact and fiction, are almost as old as the moving image itself, dating back to an 1895 dramatic vignette, The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Led by Queen ...
More

Moving images of the British monarchy, in fact and fiction, are almost as old as the moving image itself, dating back to an 1895 dramatic vignette, The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Led by Queen Victoria, British monarchs themselves appeared in the new “animated photography” from 1896. Half a century later, the 1953 coronation of Elizabeth II was a milestone in the adoption of television, watched by 20 million Britons and 100 million North Americans. At the century’s end, Princess Diana’s funeral was viewed by 2.5 billion worldwide. Seventeen essays by international commentators examine the portrayal of royalty in the “actuality” picture, the early extended feature, amateur cinema, the movie melodrama, the Commonwealth documentary, New Queer Cinema, TV current affairs, the big screen ceremonial and the post-historical boxed set. These contributors include Ian Christie, Elisabeth Bronfen, Andrew Higson, Steven Fielding, Karen Lury, Glyn Davis, Ann Gray, Jane Landman, Victoria Duckett, Jude Cowan Montague, James Downs, Barbara Straumann, Deirdre Gilfedder, Jo Stephenson, Ruth Adams, Erin Bell, Basil Glynn and Nicola Rehling.Less

The British monarchy on screen

Published in print: 2016-03-01

Moving images of the British monarchy, in fact and fiction, are almost as old as the moving image itself, dating back to an 1895 dramatic vignette, The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Led by Queen Victoria, British monarchs themselves appeared in the new “animated photography” from 1896. Half a century later, the 1953 coronation of Elizabeth II was a milestone in the adoption of television, watched by 20 million Britons and 100 million North Americans. At the century’s end, Princess Diana’s funeral was viewed by 2.5 billion worldwide. Seventeen essays by international commentators examine the portrayal of royalty in the “actuality” picture, the early extended feature, amateur cinema, the movie melodrama, the Commonwealth documentary, New Queer Cinema, TV current affairs, the big screen ceremonial and the post-historical boxed set. These contributors include Ian Christie, Elisabeth Bronfen, Andrew Higson, Steven Fielding, Karen Lury, Glyn Davis, Ann Gray, Jane Landman, Victoria Duckett, Jude Cowan Montague, James Downs, Barbara Straumann, Deirdre Gilfedder, Jo Stephenson, Ruth Adams, Erin Bell, Basil Glynn and Nicola Rehling.

This chapter offers a critique of McKibbin's view regarding the popularity of the British monarchy among the working class. It first points to the need to distinguish ‘magic’ and ‘religion’, because ...
More

This chapter offers a critique of McKibbin's view regarding the popularity of the British monarchy among the working class. It first points to the need to distinguish ‘magic’ and ‘religion’, because it will be argued that there was a deliberate intensification of the sacred and Christian character of the monarchy by royal servants and the leaders of the Church of England, but not its magical character. Second, it suggests that neither the ‘evidence’ of Geoffrey Gorer nor of Kingsley Martin is as compelling as it appears; and that there is a dearth of other evidence, notably for the coronations of 1937 and 1953 from Mass-Observation, a body keen to highlight atavisms. Third, it argues that in the 1930s Martin's perspectives were affected by his preoccupation with the threat of fascism, which he understood as an irrational doctrine akin to monarchy. Finally, the chapter emphasises the purely conventional sense in which the word ‘magic’ has been and is associated with the term ‘monarchy’, and argues that a tone of ‘knowingness’ marked — and continues to mark — working-class engagement with the monarchy, which ‘punctured official knowledges and preserved an independent popular voice’.Less

Britain’s ‘Quasi-Magical’ Monarchy in the Mid-Twentieth Century?

Andrezj Olechnowicz

Published in print: 2011-04-07

This chapter offers a critique of McKibbin's view regarding the popularity of the British monarchy among the working class. It first points to the need to distinguish ‘magic’ and ‘religion’, because it will be argued that there was a deliberate intensification of the sacred and Christian character of the monarchy by royal servants and the leaders of the Church of England, but not its magical character. Second, it suggests that neither the ‘evidence’ of Geoffrey Gorer nor of Kingsley Martin is as compelling as it appears; and that there is a dearth of other evidence, notably for the coronations of 1937 and 1953 from Mass-Observation, a body keen to highlight atavisms. Third, it argues that in the 1930s Martin's perspectives were affected by his preoccupation with the threat of fascism, which he understood as an irrational doctrine akin to monarchy. Finally, the chapter emphasises the purely conventional sense in which the word ‘magic’ has been and is associated with the term ‘monarchy’, and argues that a tone of ‘knowingness’ marked — and continues to mark — working-class engagement with the monarchy, which ‘punctured official knowledges and preserved an independent popular voice’.

The book opens with a discussion on the manifestations of national unity in Britain in 1945 and the impact of the Second World War on its development and culture. Despite the romanticized version of ...
More

The book opens with a discussion on the manifestations of national unity in Britain in 1945 and the impact of the Second World War on its development and culture. Despite the romanticized version of the war promoted by Winston Churchill and the British Monarchy, its effect was both divisive and unifying. Victory in the war engendered the idealization of gentlemanly traditions and humane differences to the detriment of scientific innovation and industrial productivity. Post-war development planning was nonexistent and the subsequent government had to contend with the economic and social ravages dealt by the war, usually through state control and intervention. External relations and power shifts were ambiguous and social issues of inequality and class divisions also came into the limelight. In politics, that same divisiveness was also observed, within and among the various political parties such as the Conservative and the Labour Party.Less

The Façade of Unity

Kenneth O Morgan

Published in print: 1990-10-04

The book opens with a discussion on the manifestations of national unity in Britain in 1945 and the impact of the Second World War on its development and culture. Despite the romanticized version of the war promoted by Winston Churchill and the British Monarchy, its effect was both divisive and unifying. Victory in the war engendered the idealization of gentlemanly traditions and humane differences to the detriment of scientific innovation and industrial productivity. Post-war development planning was nonexistent and the subsequent government had to contend with the economic and social ravages dealt by the war, usually through state control and intervention. External relations and power shifts were ambiguous and social issues of inequality and class divisions also came into the limelight. In politics, that same divisiveness was also observed, within and among the various political parties such as the Conservative and the Labour Party.

This chapter discusses the relevance of exhibitions to British imperial culture and colonial nationalism. It explains that the popularity of the British monarchy, Australian explorers and bush ...
More

This chapter discusses the relevance of exhibitions to British imperial culture and colonial nationalism. It explains that the popularity of the British monarchy, Australian explorers and bush figures, and Indian artisans and princes resulted in part from the cultural policy to create and preserve those historical fantasies at the exhibitions. The chapter argues that exhibitions were able to offer objects and activities of mass education and entertainment, and provided the public culture necessary for the participatory remaking of history, memory, and identities.Less

Epilogue : Recessional: Imperial Culture and Colonial Nationalism

Peter H. Hoffenberg

Published in print: 2001-05-20

This chapter discusses the relevance of exhibitions to British imperial culture and colonial nationalism. It explains that the popularity of the British monarchy, Australian explorers and bush figures, and Indian artisans and princes resulted in part from the cultural policy to create and preserve those historical fantasies at the exhibitions. The chapter argues that exhibitions were able to offer objects and activities of mass education and entertainment, and provided the public culture necessary for the participatory remaking of history, memory, and identities.

In the early 19th-century France, anarchists as political prisoners were granted with certain privileges. Because of this, Peter Kropotkin, one of the ...
More

In the early 19th-century France, anarchists as political prisoners were granted with certain privileges. Because of this, Peter Kropotkin, one of the most feared anarchists, was not imprisoned for his crimes along with the common criminals. This chapter points out that a comparative history of Anglo-American punishment is similar to that of common law. Looking into the history of the English monarchy reveals certain features that are similar to that of the French monarchy. This chapter, aside from providing a detailed account of the standards and practices of England, also includes a discussion about status and punishment in the colonial era and how these two aspects served a great purpose as these dictated the mode of punishment an offender had to take.Less

Low Status in the Anglo-American World

James Q. Whitman

Published in print: 2005-05-05

In the early 19th-century France, anarchists as political prisoners were granted with certain privileges. Because of this, Peter Kropotkin, one of the most feared anarchists, was not imprisoned for his crimes along with the common criminals. This chapter points out that a comparative history of Anglo-American punishment is similar to that of common law. Looking into the history of the English monarchy reveals certain features that are similar to that of the French monarchy. This chapter, aside from providing a detailed account of the standards and practices of England, also includes a discussion about status and punishment in the colonial era and how these two aspects served a great purpose as these dictated the mode of punishment an offender had to take.

This chapter discusses how New England almanacs served the interests of British nationalism through preserving the memory of key dates in the British monarchy, and singing the monarchs' praises in ...
More

This chapter discusses how New England almanacs served the interests of British nationalism through preserving the memory of key dates in the British monarchy, and singing the monarchs' praises in poetry. Almanacs, like the newspapers, often helped to promote themes sympathetic to the Protestant interest, and showed that the new cosmopolitanism and “enlightened” thought about science did not necessarily lead to theological liberalism. The chapter reveals that almanac-makers commanded a unique position in early eighteenth-century print trades, and serviced New England's interests in British identity and international Protestantism. Almanacs helped to create a heightened sense of British national identity by marking days both in the monarch's life, and those signifying Britain's deliverance from popery and arbitrary government. They easily combined ideas about redemptive history and science, much in the same manner as did their contemporaries Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and others.Less

Protestants, Popery, and Prognostications : New England Almanacs

Thomas S. Kidd

Published in print: 2004-11-10

This chapter discusses how New England almanacs served the interests of British nationalism through preserving the memory of key dates in the British monarchy, and singing the monarchs' praises in poetry. Almanacs, like the newspapers, often helped to promote themes sympathetic to the Protestant interest, and showed that the new cosmopolitanism and “enlightened” thought about science did not necessarily lead to theological liberalism. The chapter reveals that almanac-makers commanded a unique position in early eighteenth-century print trades, and serviced New England's interests in British identity and international Protestantism. Almanacs helped to create a heightened sense of British national identity by marking days both in the monarch's life, and those signifying Britain's deliverance from popery and arbitrary government. They easily combined ideas about redemptive history and science, much in the same manner as did their contemporaries Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and others.